


Fox Wife

by Hlessi



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Fox Culture, Foxes, Hobbit Culture, Kink Meme, Lies, M/M, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Mythology References, Romance, Shapeshifting, Stalking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-18
Updated: 2014-09-18
Packaged: 2018-02-17 21:13:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2323373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hlessi/pseuds/Hlessi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All foxes are deceivers. They lie, steal, and seduce. They do not love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fox Wife

**Author's Note:**

> Relevant to [this prompt](http://hobbit-kink.livejournal.com/2235.html?thread=2908347#t2908347) over at the Hobbit Kink Meme.
> 
> Related in a big way to [this piece of fiction](http://www.yoonhalee.com/?p=599), which everyone in the world should read.
> 
> My tumblr is [bilboisms.tumblr.com](http://bilboisms.tumblr.com). All prompts and comments are welcome!

Bilbo was not a very good fox.

To begin with, he did not look like a very good fox, or even much like a fox at all. Unlike his cousins, who were all as foxy as a fox should be, with their red fur, neat black ears and paws, and fine, full tails, Bilbo was rather, as one sharp-tongued relative put it, mousy. His fur was that indecisive brownish colour that couldn't seem to make up its mind whether to be red or yellow, what the kind would call _amber_ and what the cruel, and possibly more honest, would call _mud._ He had the black ears and paws, but dull as lead where they should have been glossy, and his tail was full but short, preposterously short, _impossibly_ short. If it had not been for his personality, he would have been known, for foxes could be quite hateful in their teasing, as Bilbo Short-tail.

Unfortunately for Bilbo, he _did_ have a personality, and because of it he was known as Odd Bilbo, which wasn't very clever but was certainly to the point. Foxes were of the opinion that if you couldn't be clever then you should at least be succinct, which often passed for cleverness anyway, although it was always preferable to be both at once if it could at all be helped; foxes were great practitioners of gnomic phrases, especially because it left so much room for interpretation. There were few things foxes liked better than very cleverly saying nothing.

That was one thing Bilbo was very good at. He was actually quite clever, clever enough for any fox, but because his other habits were so peculiar it didn't really do him any good, except when he wanted an insult to really sting. This rude wit kept him socially acceptable, but wasn't otherwise much help.

There were too many things about Bilbo that taxed the patience of even the most tolerant fox. He liked to read, for one thing, and he liked Elves, for another. Neither of these things would normally have counted against him. Literacy was actually considered a very important part of a fox's education, for knowing how to read opened whole new worlds of possibilities for deception, and was essential to any seduction. Even Men didn't really go in for illiterate lovers any more, at least not high-born Men, the only Men worth seducing, and it was the darling dream of every young fox to someday seduce an Elf, which no fox, young or old, had ever managed before. Should Bilbo have seduced an Elf, no one would have cared what colour his coat was or how long his tail: it would have been the most tremendous trick ever played by a fox, and he would have been revered as a hero for as long as there were foxes in the world.

But that was just the problem. Bilbo didn't want to deceive or seduce anyone. He liked to read because he enjoyed reading for its own sake, and he liked Elves for the same reason: that is, none whatsoever. He liked to talk about Elves, and about the things he read, and most afternoons he could be found sitting under trees with his nose in a book, which was probably about Elves. Worse, it probably wasn't even a book he'd stolen, but one he'd _borrowed,_ as he put it, which as the other foxes puzzled out seemed to mean a sort of temporary stealing.

It was the same with Men. His relatives did him the favour of taking him along to observe any number of Men worth seducing, but he showed no interest in any of them. In fact, he showed more interest in the clothes they were wearing, the food they were eating, or what they had in their library. While his cousins would take on the guises of beautiful men and women and go sloping off into bedrooms and behind tapestries with the Men of their choice, Bilbo would put on a jewelled carcanet one of his aunts had given him and stroll through the place eating things off plates or pulling books and scrolls under tables to read in private, occasionally enduring—ancestors forbid _enjoying_ —a pat on the head.

There seemed to be no end to Bilbo's eccentricities, and his relatives whispered that it was his father's fault. There was no question of it being Belladonna's, who had been the slyest fox to ever live excepting perhaps her own ancestor, Brandobras the Clever. She was the reddest vixen in her large skulk, and had once been the mistress of a Gondorian king, who eventually went mad over her refusal to marry him. If anyone was considered likely to seduce an Elf, it had been Belladonna—and then she'd married that Bungo.

There were few things in life that foxes considered really scandalous, and this was one of them. To think of Belladonna, married to the likes of Bungo. Fat, slow Bungo, who was that worst of all unfoxish things: boring. Belladonna, married to Boring Bungo. It was monstrous. She could as well have married a troll—at least that would have been unusual. Many foxes suspected that Bungo wasn't a fox at all, with his tail so short, his ears so long, his nose so blunt. Belladonna's youngest brother Isengar, who once caused a war amongst the Rohirrim with his various affairs, went so far as to suggest out loud that perhaps Bungo was just a very foxy-looking rabbit. Rabbits, after all, could be quite cunning themselves, and the prestige of pulling such a trick as marrying Red Belladonna might even be worth getting eaten when he was found out.

Belladonna, true to form, hadn't seemed to give a toss of her head for any of this gossip. She did just as she pleased, as she always had, and when Bilbo came along she seemed very proud of her small, sickly kit. So pleased was she that she stopped going abroad, so that she could raise him up herself. The other foxes noticed that she also seemed to have stopped having affairs, though whether they understood the connection between that and her marriage was debatable; most foxes had a very foxy understanding of wedlock.

So Bilbo grew up, the son of Red Belladonna and Boring Bungo. Was it any wonder, cried his relatives, that he turned up so strange? One could have hoped he'd taken more after his mother, and he did seem to have something of her sharp tongue, but for the most part he seemed to be the spit of his father, who'd never seduced anyone but his wife, which most foxes insisted was more of a tragedy than a trick.

One day, his aunt Mirabella, who once had an affair with seven brothers at once, asked him if he had his eye on anyone.

“Perhaps an Elf,” suggested Mirabella, who was, from experience, an optimist. “You never know.”

Bilbo's ear twitched. “For what?”

“For...” She reminded herself that Bilbo wasn't stupid, the second worst of all unfoxish things, but young. “For bedding.”

“Why?”

Mirabella looked at him very closely. He didn't seem to be pulling her leg. “Oh, anything, I suppose. I like jewels, myself. Isengar likes gold. Donnamira prefers the still-beating heart of an enemy. Or just to say that you'd done it, really. I don't think any of us has ever bedded an Elf.”

Bilbo looked down, at the open book in front of him, a page of which depicted a dark-haired elf-maiden dancing in a field with butterflies. When he looked at his aunt again, his golden eyes—the lovely golden eyes he had from Belladonna, thank the ancestors—were very serious. “What about love?”

Foxes were rarely speechless. To cause a fox to be speechless was actually something of an accomplishment, but neither aunt nor nephew appreciated it at the time.

“Love?” she repeated, rather stupidly. _“Love?”_

“Love,” said Bilbo, and looked down at his book again.

_It's all that reading,_ thought Mirabella. _It's ruined him._ “You're confused, my nephew. Love is for mating. Love is for kits and the summer, for digging dens in the warm earth. Men are for tricks and pleasure. Trust me, it's not like love at all, the way they grunt and groan on top of you.”

Bilbo's tail, such as it was, was lashing anxiously. “Is it that bad?”

_Too much,_ Mirabella warned herself. “Oh no, it's not bad at all, only you get bored after a while. Then you find someone else.” Bilbo looked very distressed. Mirabella wanted to comfort him, but she hardly knew why he was upset in the first place. She hadn't told him anything everyone didn't already know.

“I don't want that,” said Bilbo. “I don't want that at all.”

_This is Bungo's fault,_ decided Mirabella, as she slunk away. She decided not to tell anyone what he'd said. Her poor nephew was enough of an embarrassment to the family as it was.

Bilbo himself was thinking about his family, but quite differently from his aunt. Bilbo was thinking about his father, Boring Bungo. He was remembering the time his uncle Hildigrim, who had actually married Bungo's cousin the quite foxy Rosa whom no one would believe was really related to Bungo even when she insisted, had asked Bungo why he didn't have affairs.

_I don't want to,_ Bungo had answered.

_Why not?_ Hildigrim had asked.

_I love Belladonna._

_Yes, right, that's fine, but what's that got to do with affairs?_

_I don't want them. I want Belladonna._

_Look here,_ Hildigrim had said, annoyed, _you're talking in circles. I'm not in the mood._

Bungo had sighed, which was actually quite queer to hear from a fox, even a theoretical one. _I only want Belladonna._

_You're lazy,_ Hildigrim had accused.

That, Bilbo felt, was what he wanted. To only want someone, one someone, one someone in particular. Not because he was lazy, but because it was his choice, to—Bilbo looked down at the book— _to abjure all others and cleave only to_ one person.

That was very unfoxy, he knew, but, being his mother's son, he couldn't care. He knew what affairs looked like, thanks to his well-meaning cousins, and he wanted none of that, please and thank you. He also knew what love looked like, thanks to his father and his books, and that, more than anything else he'd seen in life and the world, pricked his vulpine heart with avarice. He would read such stories of mannish and elven lovers and feel a red envy that filled his mouth with slaver, would give him such a hot and hungry smell that any other fox would have recognized in a heartbeat.

If anyone in his family had been able to see what was happening in Bilbo's head, then perhaps they would have been relieved. Compulsion was something all foxes understood, and though most foxes were too easily distracted to be taken by obsession for too long, its transience detracted nothing from its power. Bilbo had decided that he knew what he wanted, and would take nothing else. This was, paradoxically, a most foxy quality.

So Bilbo had, in pursuit of his desire, gone with his cousins into the places of Men. He'd been in cities, towns, and villages. He'd seen kings and queens, lords and ladies, burghers and dames, and, unlike his cousins, even looked below the salt. He would not care where his love came from, as long as they came. If they were noble, he would love the person not their birth. If they were common, he would love them no differently. If they were wealthy he would ask them for nothing and if they were poor he would provide them everything. His love would not have to give him jewels or gold or the still-beating heart of an enemy. Bilbo wanted nothing but that they would abjure all others and cleave only to him.

He had even, without his family's knowledge, gone into the woods and the mountains and, so cunningly that even the oldest foxes of his family would have been unnerved, prowled into the places of Elves without being seen or heard. There, Bilbo saw elven lords and ladies of such beauty that he could not breathe to look at them, he heard voices so enchanting that fox song seemed but tuneless screeching by comparison. Then he would wait, golden eyes gleaming, for love to fall upon him like a hawk, to pierce him so thoroughly that the bedding would be a mere formality.

Love did not come.

It occurred to him that perhaps he was too late. What if his love was already spoken for? If it was another fox, then it simply became a matter of waiting for that fox to tire of his love and go away, or harrying them off himself. But what if his love was already married? What if his love had already abjured all others, all others in this case including Bilbo, and was cleaving only to someone else? What could he do then?

_Be sensible,_ Bilbo told himself, in a voice that sounded marvellously like his father. _If your love's already married then it's either a mistake and they're unhappy, in which case you can just steal them away, or it's a mistake and they're not your love at all. A love that abjures you cannot truly be your love._

Foxes did not often lose heart; more often they simply forgot all about whatever hadn't been going their way and went off to do something else. Bilbo's problem, however, was that he _couldn't_ lose his heart, and in turn began to break it. This caused him to become something most foxes couldn't even recognize: he became sad.

Grief was not foxish. When Boring Bungo wasted away after his wife, his relatives did not understand; they concluded that he had finally become too lazy to eat and starved. Bilbo, who was in a position to know better, feared it would happen to him, but he could still eat well enough. His heart was heavy, but he wasn't yet hopeless. He was a young fox, and there were Men being born every day, while Elves lived outside time. Surely his love would come. Surely there was someone, one someone in particular, for whom he was looking, for whom he could wait.


End file.
